


Because I knew you

by slightly_ajar



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dad Jack, Friendship, Hurt Mac, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Jack, Sibling Relationship, Team as Family, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: Mac and his friends have to find a way through the consequences of Mac being seriously hurt during a mission.Intel and plots and threats didn’t matter.  There would be more bad guys after the remainder of today’s group had been arrested, interrogated and sentenced.  More systems to hack and problems to solve. That was the job.Riley’s mission had focused in to one simple, personal objective:  Get Mac safe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from the song For Good from the musical Wicked.
> 
> This story is complete, I don't have a posting scheduled in mind exactly, that would be far too organised, but I plan on updating it every couple of days. The story is complete but as for if it's finished...I keep tinkering and tinkering and tinkering with it and I'm driving myself crazy so I've decided to release it into the wild. It's unbeated so if you spot anything that might need fixing please let me know.
> 
> If you would like to come and say hello on Tumblr I’m there as [Sky-larking](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sky-larking)

Glass crunched under Riley’s boots as she ran, the shattered pieces snapping under her the feet as she rushed to the car shouting Mac’s name. 

She’d seen the car that Mac was driving speed past the forested meadow she'd been hiding in, heard the blast as the truck chasing him exploded and watched as a jagged piece of metal sent flying by the force of the detonation collided with the rear end of Mac’s car, sending it spinning. Riley hadn’t been able to look away as the car skidded and flipped, bouncing on its roof and rolling down the grassy bank next to the road. The horror of the crash, the awful screech of steel being warped and the knowledge that Mac was inside the tortured metal froze Riley in place, sickened, for long seconds until she could draw breath and make herself run. 

“Jack! Mac’s car has crashed, get a medical team here now!” she shouted into her comms “Now!” 

“Is he okay?” Jack voice was frantic, “Riley, is he okay?” 

“I don’t know yet.” Riley threw herself down the grass bank towards the car. It had landed the right way up on wrecked tyres, a twisted mess, and she could see the shape of Mac’s motionless figure slumped in the driver’s seat, “No, no, no, no!” she chanted as she ran. 

She had been in that car earlier that day. They’d acquired it from a parking lot and had driven to their coordinates where Riley had climbed into the support van to monitor satellite pictures and Mac had carried on in it to the compound he was going to investigate. They’d joked about how much Jack would have hated the ‘white picket fence’ car and would have complained about it none stop, saying that incognito doesn’t necessarily mean boring and asking why Mac couldn’t steal a sweet ride once in a while. 

The wrongness of the ruined vehicle was horrible, broken glass and sharp metal shapes where there should have been a perfectly ordinary family car. Riley pulled at the driver side door with shaking hands. It wouldn’t move. 

“Come on, come on.” She yanked on the handle over and over again, trying force it open. Mac was still and silent inside the car, vulnerable and depending on her. She could hear the engine still rumbling under the hood and was aware of a growing smell of gas. “Come on!” she screamed, adrenaline and panic made her weak and unsteady, her breathing harsh with the terror that she wasn’t going to be able to get to him in time. She stumbled when the door finally gave way then pushed herself forward to tug at Mac’s safety belt. 

“Mac, we need to move. I can smell gas, you have to move!” 

Mac’s eyes were closed, his face slack and he was curled forwards with one arm up cradled up against his ribs. Blood covered one side of his face and had turned the hair on the left side of his head into sticky, red clumps. His blue shirt was darkening in places with growing wet patches. Riley unfastened his seatbelt and grabbed hold of his shoulders, shaking them once to make him focus on her. He mumbled unintelligibly, his head lolling in an uncoordinated roll. 

“Mac, listen to me, we have to go. We’ll both die if we don’t. I’ll help you but you need to work with me.” The smell of gasoline was so thick in the air that Riley could taste it. “Mac!” 

“Ri?” Mac raised his eyes, disorientated and sluggish. “Riley?” He blinked to bring her into focus then leaned in her direction when he met her gaze. 

“It’s me, Mac. We need to get out of here now. I know you’re hurt and I’m sorry but I need you to move”. 

“’kay.” Grimacing, his head down and teeth gritted, Mac turned slowly in his seat. 

“That’s is, I’ve got you.” Riley pulled on him to help him slowly stand, wrapping an arm around his waist and dragged him forward when he was finally on his feet. He leaned heavily on her, his greater height and weight making her stagger. She could feel his body shaking where he was pressed against her. 

“I know it hurts, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but we need to go.” 

Riley struggled to drag them both forward and up the grass incline, Mac could barely put one foot in front of the other and was gasping with the pained effort each step took. She was terrified that he was going to collapse before they were far enough away from the car to be clear when the gas tank ignited. She muttered encouragement and apologies to Mac as she pulled him onwards, trying to focus ahead to safety and not behind to where the overwhelming punch of heat would come from. 

“We’re nearly there, Mac, just a little further, it’s going to be okay, just keep moving.” 

Riley braced the muscles in her legs, clenched her jaw and pushed hard to drag them both over the crest of the bank. She saw the truck burning back down the road, thick black smoke pouring from ruined vehicle into the sky. She ignored it. 

Intel and plots and threats didn’t matter. There would be more bad guys after the remainder of today’s group had been arrested, interrogated and sentenced. More systems to hack and problems to solve. That was the job. 

Riley’s mission had focused in to one simple, personal objective: Get Mac safe. 

Mac let out a gasp of pain as she’d surged up the bank and swayed towards her, his steps wavering. 

“I’m sorry, Mac. I’m sorry but we need to keep moving. Please.” 

He lurched forwards and they reached the other side of the road and slowly, slowly limped to the support van. The back doors were open and Riley eased Mac inside where he slumped to the metal floor, curling onto his side and gasping in pain. Tears leaking from his tightly closed eyes as he lay shaking. 

“We’re here now,” Riley told him, her voice catching on the strained breaths that were burning her chest. “You can rest. Help is coming.” Riley realised that there was blood on her shirt. On her hands. Mac’s blood. It was wet and warm, gathering under her nails and leaving red smears behind when she tried to wipe it away. 

The ruined car's gas tank exploded with a violent boom, sending flames then smoke roaring upwards. Riley turned her back to the fire. If she hadn’t been right there when the car had crashed, if Mac had been unconscious, if she hadn’t been able to get him out, neither of them would have walked away from that. 

“Riley!” Jack called in her ear, “We’ve just seen a new flare of heat from your location, are you okay? Riley! Mac!” 

“We’re okay, Jack but you need to get help here now.” Riley stared down at the red stains marking her skin and the fabric of her top. “Mac’s hurt, he’s really hurt. Please hurry.” 

“I’m coming, baby, we’re about three minutes away, hang on.” 

Riley pulled an emergency blanket and some dressings from the first aid kit in the back of the van. “Mac, Jack’s coming with a medical evac team,” she said as she covered him with the silver blanket. “He’ll be here soon. Mac?” She pressed one of the dressings against his head where the worst of the bleeding seemed to be coming from and knelt down so that she was on eye level with him. 

“Riley,” Mac opened bloodshot eyes, his skin was pale and his breaths were coming in soft little gasps, “are you okay?” 

“Are you kidding?” Riley’s eye stung with tears as she made her tone of voice as light and teasing as she could. “Of course I’m not, I’ve just dragged your heavy ass uphill for quarter of a mile. You are far too tall, I don’t know how you managed to balance when you walk.” 

“Practice.” he tried to smile but it was lost in a pained flinch, “Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome, but next time it’s your turn to help me escape the burning car.” 

“Okay, deal.” Sweat was beading thickly on Mac’ forehead and his lips were becoming a greyish blue as the breaths he was managing to take became weaker and further apart. Riley felt like she was watching him slip away in front of her, his gaze was losing its focus and his muscles were becoming lax as he drifted closer to unconsciousness. 

“Mac!” Riley called, panicked. 

The branches of the trees concealing the van began to toss and sway as they were buffered by displaced air and the oppressive sound of helicopter blades bore down on Riley. Leaves that had turned from green to the colours of fall were sent spinning and flying, whipped into spirals by the gusts of wind. 

Riley would never describe herself as being maternal; if anything she preferred to think of herself as more of a cool aunt, the kind who turn up unannounced with quirky presents and awesome stories. And she wasn’t trying to mother Mac, that was the role that Matty took on when she thought no one was looking, but Riley crawled into the van and lay beside Mac with her forehead next to his and threaded the fingers of one hand into his while the other stroked his hair. 

“You hear that sound? That’s Jack, he’s here to get us.” Her voice was soft. Tender. “I know it hurts and I know you want to sleep but you need to try to stay with us now, okay? Jack will need to see you with your eyes open. He needs you to hang on. We all need that, me and Jack and Bozer and Matty, we all need you to hang on.” Riley moved their joined hand to press a kiss to the back of his palm, “Stay with us.” 

Mac’s eyes cleared and focused on her face. “Jack?” 

“It’s Jack. With all that noise and drama who else would it be?” 

“Riley?” Like her words had summoned him, Riley heard Jack’s voice calling, his footsteps rushing up to her. She pushed herself up until she was sat upright and Jack threw an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. His chest was heaving with deep breaths and she could feel his heart thumping with exertion and fear against her back . “Jesus,” he cursed, taking Mac’s injuries in with a glance. He rested a hand on Mac’s shoulder, pressing gently, Mac’s eyes flickered upwards to meet Jack’s, recognition and relief momentarily banishing the pain from his face. 

“I’ve got you, brother.” 

“I think he’s really hurt, he’s not breathing right.” Riley clung to the arm that was holding her, grateful for its strength and solidity. 

“Get the doctors over here!” Jack yelled over his shoulder before turning back to Mac. “We’re going to get you out of here buddy, everything is going to be okay.” 

Riley looked behind Jack saw four paramedics running towards them. She climbed out of the van with Jack’s help and stepped to the side with weak knees to let them past her. 

“Mr MacGyver, we’re here to help you. Can you tell us what happened?” 

“Mac, call him Mac.” Riley reached out and grabbed the sleeve of the medic closest to her. “The car crashed, I had to get him out before it burned. He’s bleeding and he can’t breathe, he -”

The paramedic nodded at her with a tight smile, “Thank you miss, it’s okay, we’ll take care of him now.” 

Jack stood back as they worked, giving them enough space to help Mac but still staying right beside him. On guard. Territorial. Riley knew how much he wanted to throw a punch or take a shot lined up in his crosshairs to save Mac and could see how handing over the duty for Mac’s care to the skills of others pained him. She wanted to say something reassuring but couldn’t find any words that weren’t empty platitudes so she squeezed Jack’s hand, keeping her fingers wrapped around his. He squeezed her fingers back. 

The medics were kind and reassuring as they spoke to Mac, assessing his injuries and explaining what was happening to him but Riley could tell from the clipped tones they spoke to each other in that Mac’s injuries were severe. That his survival depended on the speed of their expertise. They moved with efficient urgency, putting an oxygen mask over Mac’s face then gently rolling him onto a stretcher as they prepared to transfer him to the helicopter. He moaned and arched at the movement. Jack flinched. 

“Mac,” the medics stood at Mac’s head bent over to be directly above him, “can you hear me? We’re taking you to the helicopter now. You’ll be in the hospital in no time.” 

As they lifted him out of the back of the van and prepared to carry him away Jack leaned over Mac. “You’ll be okay now, man, they’re going to take good care of you. We’ll see you at the hospital.” 

Mac pulled the mask away from his face with a trembling hand and reached out to grab Jack’s hand as he was carried past him, leaving smears of blood on his wrist. He looked up at Jack and held his gaze. 

“Sorry.” he said around the frighteningly small gasps of air he was able to draw in, “Thanks Jack. Thank you. For everything.” 

Jack reared back and the medical crew moved quickly away towards the helicopter. “What was that?” Jack looked livid, angrier that Riley had ever seen. “Are you saying goodbye to me? Don’t you dare, Mac!” he shouted to the figure on the stretcher as he was loaded into the helicopter. “Don’t you dare say goodbye to me! Not like this. Don’t you dare!” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had the idea for this story in my head for a while, but it’s taken some time to actually sit down and write it. There were other stories that I wanted to do first and I had to let this one simmer while I figured out just how it was going to work. Hopefully it does. Work that is… :)

Mac spent a lot of time on the porch outside his house when he was a child. He had hazy memories of being there on the swing his grandpa had hung with his mom. He'd sat there with his dad too, before his father had put so much distance between them, learning the name of constellations and how to make a compass from a glass of water and a paperclip. He’d sit there with Archimedes sometimes, stroking the dog’s soft fur and listening to the little sounds he made in his throat whenever he saw a squirrel. It was a place with more happy memories than any other kind but he hadn’t been to his old house for years so Mac couldn’t really understand why he was stood there. 

There had been noise and then there was chaos and pain. He had been walking, it had hurt but he kept moving, someone had told him he had to. Someone important. Then there had been a hard floor underneath him and it had felt like he was drowning in pain. He had heard people calling to him, calling his name but he felt himself drifting and now he was on his porch back in Mission City. 

“You look confused, son. Were you expecting something else?” 

“Harry?” Mac’s grandpa was in front of him. He looked the way Mac always pictured him, wearing a plaid shirt with a pencil in his top pocket, work boots and a look of wry amusement in his eyes. Mac reached forwards and pulled his grandpa into a tight hug. Harry smelled the way he always had, of wood shavings and aftershave, and he patted Mac on the back of his head like he used to when Mac was a boy. 

Harry felt solid in Mac’s arms. Real and warm and Mac found himself clinging to him, his fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt, unwilling to loosen his grip. 

His grandpa was never a demonstrative man, Mac knew that Harry loved him but theirs was never a household where the words were often spoken and Mac still struggled to express his deepest emotions out loud. There was so much he wanted to say to his grandfather but what he felt was too strong and too complicated to put into words. The English language didn't have the capacity to name the feelings he wanted to articulate. 

“I’ve missed you.” He choked out, hoping that it would be somewhere near enough. 

“I’ve missed you too.” Harry leaned back, holding Mac out at arm’s length to examine him. “You look like your mom. You always did when you were a kid and now,” He lifted a hand from where is was resting on Mac’s shoulder and held it up to hover near Mac’s cheek, “it’s like she’s standing right in front of me.” 

“I’ve wanted to talk to you so many times,” Mac said, forcing the best words he could find past the lump in his throat, “to tell you things, ask you questions.” 

“I’ve wanted to hear them. All of them. I always have. I know there are answers you want. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have chosen duplicity or silence, it wasn’t up to me and I would change if I could. But the man you’ve become, who you are, ,” Harry rested his palm on Mac’s cheek, his face full of pride and love, “I would never change him.” 

Sometimes when he was growing up Mac would watch his grandpa closely, looking for signs that he resented or was tired of having to raise a teenage boy so long after his own child had grown. He'd been a dad to his own family and Mac was sure that he hadn’t wanted to be a father figure again so close to his retirement. Mac had understood enough about the foster care system to know that when their own families weren’t able to take care of them children were sometimes placed in homes and looked after by other people, and the thought of being sent away terrified him. The idea of being alone, without Harry and the Bozers and Archimedes, made him feel sick with icy terror. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing everything he had left. So he tried to be good for his grandpa, he tried not to make Harry worry or become angry with him. 

He tried not to be a burden. 

That Harry wanted him just the way he had always been. That the person who Mac was, who Mac’s circumstances had shaped, was one that he was proud of was... It felt like deliverance, even after all the time that had passed. 

Harry lifted his chin and met Mac’s eye straight on, “It’s only fair to tell you that when you find some of the answers you are searching for you won’t like them. They’ll change things, in ways you can’t imagine. They’ll give you more questions. I want you to know that the reason I did what I did was that I wanted you to be safe, I know what it’s like to lose someone I love and I didn’t want that to happen again.” 

“Keep me safe?” Mac asked, confused, “What would you need to keep me safe from in Mission City? Nothing ever happens here.” 

He threw out a hand to take in the calm morning and quiet street of Mac's old neighbourhood.

“The school football field burnt down once.” Harry raised a sardonic eyebrow. 

“That was an accident!” Mac protested, indignation echoing down the years in his voice. “And it wasn’t completely my fault, the safety features in that place weren’t up to code, anything could have set off a fire. 

“That’s what I told the Principle, and the Sherriff, and the Fire Chief.” Harry gave a dismissive sniff. “I never cared for football much anyway. It’s more about strength than skill and strategy and where is the challenge in that?” 

Memories of Harry grumbling irritably during each Superbowl and hiding in the garage until they were over came back to Mac. Along with visions of his grandfather’s upper body disappearing underneath the hood of his truck with comments about, “armoured catch” and “barbarism” floating out from the machinery. 

Mac did have good memories of his home and his childhood, and the fact they existed at all was due mostly to the man in front of him. “Grandpa, did I ever say thank you?" Mac shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, as awkward and uncomfortable as a teenage boy on a Prom date. "For taking care of me? I know you didn’t have to. After dad left you could have -” 

“There was never any other way it could have been.” Harry’s voice was emphatic, the grip he took of Mac’s shoulder brooked no argument. “You were never a chore that I agreed to take responsibility for. You are my family, that’s all there was to it.” He dropping his hand to his side then cleared his throat, indicating that the moment of sentiment over. Pragmatic and practical as ever, Harry began addressing the problem he saw before him. “There is something you need to think about.” He said, “What you are going to do next?” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here so I don’t know how to decide what to do next.” Mac looked around again, searching for what had brought him home. All he saw was an uneventful day. The sun was high with white clouds drifting alongside it in a pale blue sky. Birds were calling in the trees and he could hear the faint rumble of traffic on the main road half a mile away. 

He could remember which floorboards on the porch creaked when he stepped on them, he remembered how many times he and Bozer had attempted and failed to climb onto the roof of the house to release a spy camera before Bozer’s mom realised what they were doing and yelled at them (six and a half times) but he had no idea why he was in Mission City. It wasn’t for an op for the Phoenix. He’d been on a mission. He had been in the field with Riley. Riley…

“Where’s Riley, is everyone okay?” 

“Riley is fine.” 

“We were tracking a team of smugglers, I went into their warehouse to tag some of their contraband…” Mac didn’t understand how a fall day that had started with a mission with his team had become summer afternoon in his home town. Not knowing how or why had never sat comfortably with Mac, his fingers itched with the need to take something apart to see how its working parts moved. “I don’t know how I got here. Why am I here?” 

“That’s a good question with a complicated answer.” Harry said. Mac felt like he was a child again at the start of one of his grandpa’s long winded lessons. “What's happening now is not as important as what happens next.” 

“How do I decided what I to do next when I don’t understand what’s happening now?” Mac said, frustration beginning to grow along with the rising suspicion that something was very wrong. 

“Not all of the decision is up to you.” Harry face was rueful. “The skills of the people around will influence what happens, some of it will be down to luck but part of it is down to you. How hard you try. What you choose.” 

“I can’t make a decision with no information. I can improvise when I need to but I don’t have anything to work with.” Mac held up his empty hands. “I can’t make something out of nothing.” 

“It’s not going to work like that, son. You have you and that’s enough. You’ll see.” 

His grandpa had always been enigmatic, Mac had once joked to Jack that being raised by him was like being brought up by Yoda, but Mac usually had some idea where one of his lessons was leading, or he knew what kind of questions to ask to work out what the lesson was going to be. But as he stood there in front of his childhood home he felt clueless. 

He couldn’t think. 

He was confused but it was more than that, he realised, he felt disorientated. Wrong somehow. Damaged. 

The heavy feeling in his body grew, weighing down his muscles like the morning after a sleepless night. His limbs sluggish and exhausted. There were times when Mac dragged himself home from the Phoenix, tired and worn from a mission, and all he was focused on was getting home and collapsing onto his sofa. It wasn't until he walked into his house, smelled whatever meal Bozer was cooking and felt his stomach growl that he realised how hungry he was. Like that sudden awareness of his body's need for nourishment, Mac realised how weak and bruised he felt. Like his ears were ringing from a blow. Like he’d fallen. Been struck. Been beaten He ached. Couldn’t breathe. His chest. Pain. 

“Grandpa, I don’t…” Agony tore through him and Mac cried out and staggered forwards on weak knees. He felt himself falling and his grandpa’s arms were around him, lowering him gently onto the floor. 

“I’ve got you. You keep breathing now, you just need to keep breathing.” 

  


A harsh splintering snap woke Riley. She was up on her feet and moving at the sound, panic making her breathless. 

Where was he? She had to get him. The car! 

“Riley?” Jack’s voice. 

“I can’t get it open, Jack. It won’t open!” She was pulling hard, metal digging into her hand and panic making her movements sharp and uncoordinated. “Come on, please, please.” She could smell gas and the door wouldn’t open. The steel was warped. Mac wasn’t moving and if she couldn’t get him out…

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” A large hand covered her own, stilling their frantic jerks. “Everything is okay. We’re in the hospital, do you remember?” 

Riley looked up, taking in the sight of the waiting room where she and Jack were sat. Pale walls, rows of chairs and posters about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle surrounded her where she’d expected to see smashed glass and twisted metal trapping her wounded friend. 

“We’re not…”

“You got him out of the car. “Jack took both Riley’s hands in his and led her away from the door to the reception area that she’d been desperately tearing at. “You got him safe. You called me and the medical evac team in and we got him to hospital. Just breathe, okay?” 

Riley leaned forward and rested her forehead on Jack’s shoulder. 

“I heard a smash. There was shattered glass was on the road and it broke under my feet when I was running to get to Mac. When I heard the sound I thought I was back there.” She felt made of glass herself. A fragile figure that could break and shatter. 

“It was me crushing a soda can, I’m sorry.” 

Riley took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to gain back control of her breathing from the frightened gasps her dread was shaping, ordering her body to settle. “That’s okay, Jack. You didn’t know. How long had I slept for?” 

“Not long. The doctors haven’t said anything new, I’ve just been waiting. I don’t know how much longer I can sit here. If we don’t hear something soon I might have to go all Jack Dalton on his place and start kicking down doors and demanding answers.” 

“I might join you.” 

Riley was still resting her head on Jack’s shoulder and his arms were around her. She drew herself up, readying to step away from the embrace. The panic that had incapacitated her had calmed enough for her to not need his support to hold herself steady but then Jack rested his head against hers and tightened his grip almost imperceptibly and Riley understood that he was giving comfort as a way to soothe himself. Jack wanted to be strong, for her and for Mac, and he wouldn’t ask for a hand to hold while he felt the need to be the protector but by offering affection he was receiving it too, in holding he was being held. So Riley stayed still and rested her weight against him a little more. 

“The family of Angus MacGyver?” 

“That’s us.” Jack answered, both he and Riley stepping out of their embrace to face the surgeon at the door. She was wearing scrubs and held a surgical mask in her hand. Her shoulders were slumped with fatigue and Riley searched her face for a clue to the news she had brought them. Jack was tense and still beside her. Watching and waiting too. 

“Your friend is out of surgery. He had us worried for a while and made things difficult for my team once or twice but we’ve stabilized him now. You can come and see him if you like.” 

Relief, Riley thought as she and Jack fell into a hard hug, is devastating. 

It sounded nonsensical, but it was true. At the surgeon’s words Riley sagged like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Like her fear and the need to react were what had been fuelling her ever since she had seen Mac’s car spin off the road, and now that he was with people who had been able to help him and she didn’t have brace herself as if she was standing between him and harm’s way her body didn’t have the energy to stand. 

“He’s stable?” Jack asked. 

“We’re watching him closely. He is still very ill but you can come and see him if you want.” She held the door open for them to pass. “I have to warn you,” she continued as she led the way through the hospital corridors, “there are machines monitoring his condition, it can be a difficult thing for relatives to see, and he is still effected by the anaesthetic we gave him so he won’t wake up.” She pointed to the door of Mac’s room, one of six identical ones on a hushed ward. 

“Thank you, doc.” Jack nodded to her. 

Mac was lying in a bed made with white sheets, his arms rested on top of the blankets with an IV leading from the back of one hand to a bag hung on a metal stand beside him. His face was marred with bruises and the cannula feeding him oxygen helped give him a healthier colour underneath the purple and blue marks than he’d had when he was fading away on the floor of the van. 

He didn’t look like Mac. 

It wasn’t the bruises or the dressings. It wasn’t the needles and tubes or the generic hospital gown that had stripped him of his personality. 

It was that he wasn’t _there_. 

If Mac was in the room with them he would have been poking at the machines to figure out how they worked and what else he could make with them. He would be joking with Jack and Riley and pulling faces at Jack’s puns. It felt to Riley like when she had seen the shattered car after the accident, seeing something she knew so well look so wrong was shocking. 

Riley watched Mac’s life beat out on the monitors in front of her, but the body wired up to the monitors didn’t feel like Mac, it didn’t have his presence, like it was a shell without a soul inside. 

She looked to Jack and could read in his face that his feelings mirrored her own. 

“He’s sleeping.” Jack said quietly. “He’s healing. He’ll come back.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Riley tapped her nails on the glass front of the vending machine as she decided what to buy. 

She had stepped outside to phone Bozer without knowing what she was going to tell him. Mac was stable but not really okay. He was still with them but he wasn’t _here_ and neither she nor Jack knew what to do. 

Bozer said Matty was speaking to the hospital to arrange to have Mac transferred to one in LA when the doctors thought he was ready. Riley hoped that they could arrange that soon, she felt very far from home. He’d had asked her when she’d last eaten, and she couldn’t remember, so to stop him nagging she’d agreed to pick up something for her and Jack to eat. 

She looked at the lines of snacks past her reflection in the glass and wondered what she wanted to taste. Did she want something sweet or savoury? Crunchy or soft? Cool ranch or spicy pepper? Would a sugar rush be good or would something with carbs be better? Were flapjacks actually as healthy as they claimed to be? What if she’d hurt Mac when she moved him? 

Riley’s fingers froze as the unbidden thought crashed through her. 

_What if she’d hurt Mac when she’d moved him?_

In the first aid course she’d done when she starting going into the field she been taught that moving injured people could aggravate their wounds so it should only be done when absolutely necessary, and she’d pulled Mac out of the car then dragged him all the way to the van. They probably hadn’t needed to go that far. They could have been safe from the car exploding about thirty feet away but she’d been so scared that she’d kept pushing him to walk. What if she’d made him worse? He’d been bleeding and shaking with pain and she’d kept telling him to keep moving. How could she have done that? Why hadn't she thought about what she was doing instead of panicking? 

Jack’s reflection joined hers, “Peanut M&M’s,” he said. “If you don’t know what candy to go for always choose peanut M&M’s. Riley?” He noticed her expression in the glass and asked again, more urgently, “Riley?” 

“Do you think I hurt Mac when I got him out of the car?” She asked, her mirror image’s stricken expression staring back at her. “I made him walk all the way to the van. Do you think I made him worse?” 

“No. No of course not!” Jack took hold of her shoulders and gently turned her round to face him. “You got him out, you got him safe. None of what is happening is your fault.” 

“How can you be sure? There was so much blood." It had coated her hands and her clothes as Mac had leaned against her. A nurse had given her a warm grey sweatshirt to replace her ruined top and after she'd changed in a hospital bathroom she'd washed her hands, feeling strangely guilty as she watched the red water running away, thinking that maybe she should have waited until they knew that Mac was going to be okay, that she should have kept the sign that Mac’s heart was beating with her, like a charm or an anchor. "Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely. Come on. We’re going to get something to eat and you are going to stop thinking about this.” He reached past her to feed money into the vending machine. “You’re worrying for nothing. You are the only reason he is alive right now. He would have died when the car caught fire if it wasn’t for you.” 

“I’m not the only reason, Jack. You came when we needed you, you got us out of there.” Riley said, watching a packet slide forwards and fall to clatter at the bottom of the machine. “Peanut M&M’s?” 

“Most of the food groups are represented in this little bag,” he said, snatching if from the drawer and waving it back and forth. “Protein, sugar and fat.” 

“I don’t think those are the food groups, Jack.” 

“They are the only ones that I’m interested in right now. Come on, let’s go back and see how our boy is getting on.” 

Jack linked his arm with Riley and started walking back through the corridor. She rubbed her hands up and down her sleeves, trying to shake off the anxiety she had found herself blindsided by. Despite her initial relief when the surgeon had told them Mac was stable Riley still felt on edge, like the accident hadn’t completely ended and she needed to guard for danger. Her mind kept presenting her with new and unexpected reasons to panic, making her suddenly alert and fearful. She felt hunted. And from the way that Jack kept checking for exits and flexing his hand near his hip Riley could tell he felt the same. 

“Don’t tell Bozer that when I said I’d go and get something for us to eat I bought candy from a machine. I think he meant for us to go and find some proper food.” Riley said, stealing a chocolate from Jack’s bag. 

“There’s no such thing as proper food in a hospital, this is probably better than the stuff they sell in the canteen.” Jack crunched on a peanut, “Beside, chocolate is good for you, it has the happy hormone in it, what’s it called, serendipity?” 

“Serotonin. And you’re right, I've read that chocolate has serotonin in. So this is health food, we’re practically eating a salad here?” She stole another candy. 

“It’s like a juice cleanse in solid form. I feel detoxified already.” 

They laughed as they turned the corridor to Mac’s ward, their giggles faltering when they saw a nurse sprinting from his room. They ran to his door to find the monitors around him shrieking and flashing as a doctor leaned over him, shining a light into his eyes and calling his name. 

“Mac?” Jack rushed into the room with Riley right behind him. “What’s happening? Mac!” 

The nurse who had ran out of the room hurried back in pushing a cart loaded with equipment with two colleagues following. They quickly surrounded Mac’s bed, looking determined and focused. 

“I’m sorry but you’ll have to leave.” The doctor told them. His voice calm and authoritative as he walked towards them, his arms held out to usher them away. 

“No way,” Jack yelled, planting his feet and lifting his chin. “What’s happening to him? Tell me!” 

Riley looked past Jack to bed where the nurses had laid Mac down flat and were cutting open the front of his hospital gown, his bruised body grey and still under their hands. She couldn’t see him breathing. 

“We need to take care of your friend but we can’t if you are in here.” The doctor met Jack's eye, not daunted by his aggression. “If you want to help your friend you need to give us space to work. I’m sorry but you’ll have to wait outside.” The machines were still screeching with high pitched alarms and Riley wanted to scream at the medics to make it all stop. 

“Come on Jack,” Riley tugged on his arm. “Come on, we’ll wait outside.” 

Jack pulled away from Riley, “No. I can’t.” 

“Please.” Riley slipped her hand into Jack's and pulled at him again, “Come outside with me. Wait with me while they work.” She knew Jack wouldn’t listen to the doctor’s plea but he might respond to hers. “I need you to come with me, they’re going to do everything they can to help Mac and we need to let them do it. Please Jack.” 

"I can't leave him Riley." Jack looked as immovable as stone, a cliff face braced against the crashing waves of a winter storm. 

"We're not leaving him, we're just giving his doctors the space they need to help him." Riley squeezed his hand and felt Jack's fingers tighten around hers. "That's what he needs from us right now." Riley focused her gaze on Jack's face, trying to ignore the electronic readings of the machines around Mac shouting out that he could be dying. "Please Jack." Her voice was barely a whisper but Jack heard, Riley saw in his eyes when he relented. She stepped backward, drawing Jack from the room as the medics around Mac’s bed called numbers and instructions to each other. Mac lay in the middle of the activity, motionless and unaware. 

The door of the room closed. 

  
  


Mac knew that Jack’s earliest memory was of lying on the floor playing beside his father who was sat watching TV, he could remember driving his toy cars around and over his father’s sock clad feet with the sound of a football game in the background. Bozer’s first memory was of sitting on the floor under a Christmas tree and stretching up for the red and green twinkling light that were just out of reach, and the memory that Riley said was her first was of hiding underneath her kitchen table making towers from building blocks while her mom sang along with the radio as she made dinner. Mac didn’t know which of his memories came first. He wasn’t sure which of his earliest recollection were pure memories and which were combinations of his childhood experiences and the stories he’d been told while looking at the photo album Harry kept on a bookshelf in the lounge. Stories he’d heard so many times and knew so well it was like he’d been present when they were being created. 

He was stood inside his childhood home but it didn’t look the one he’d seen every day when he’d come home from school to his father and then to Harry. It was one from the old photos and sepia tinged memories of when Mac was very young. 

From before both his parents were gone. 

Harry’s keys weren’t hanging on the hook by the coatrack. The door to his dad’s office wasn’t shut tight. There were pots of flowers on the windowsill and a yellow rug by the front door. The house felt lighter and fresher and the windows were open to let a breeze move through the room. 

His mom was sat on the sofa, her legs curled under her, smiling at him. Her expression was full of love and her eyes swam with tears. 

“Angus?” She unfolded herself from her seat. She looked the way she used to when she came home from work, wearing a shirt and pencil skirt, her feet bare, her hair falling over her shoulders, waved from being tied back all day. “Angus, honey.” 

Mac held his breath, unbelieving and hopeful all at once. Elated and petrified. Scared of damaging the moment, one was so delicate he was afraid if he moved or spoke it would shatter and his mother would vanish. 

She understood, smiling as she approached him, reaching out her hand. “I’m not going to disappear in a puff of smoke. See?” she ran her fingers down his arm then slipped her hand into his. “I’m right here.” 

“Mom?” 

“I’m right here.” 

They moved as one, reaching up and curling around. Mac pressed his cheek into his mother’s shoulder, into the hollow of her collarbone that his muscle memory knew would be waiting for him. He breathed out a sob. One from so deep inside him releasing it ached. His mom wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her in a fierce grip, a thumb stroking back and forth across the nape of his neck. 

“I’ve missed you, baby. I’ve missed you so much.” 

Mac was taller than his mother, he needed to lean over to hug her. In all his memories of her she was larger than him, standing over him, surrounding him with her presence, and it felt strange to have to curl forward to hold her. He wasn’t a small child anymore, it shouldn’t have been surprising, but the changed shook Mac, emphasizing how many years had passed since they had last been together. 

She drew back from their embrace a little and looked up into Mac’s face. “Look at you, all grown up.” She stroked her hand down his cheek. “You’re so handsome.” 

“Grandpa said I look like you.” 

“I always said you looked more like me than your father,” his mom said, smiling, “even when you were a baby. There is plenty of him in you though,” she patted his chest, “but you can’t see those things at first glance.” 

Mac flinched. “I’m not like him.” 

His mother watched his face, scrutinising his expression, understanding. “Your father is a complicated man,” she sighed. “I know that better than anyone. There are always layers to what he chooses to do. You have to see past the surface with him and be patient. 

“I’ve been more than patient.” Mac shook his head. “I’m starting to think that there isn’t anything else for me to see.” 

“I’m sure whatever he’s done he did it because he cares about you.” 

“He cared about _you_ and when you were gone he just…stopped. Nothing else mattered anymore, not even me.” 

“Your father loves you very much.” His mother insisted. “I know that even if you don’t believe it yet. You’ll see.” 

Mac shook his head again, not wanting to talk about his father, he didn’t want to waste the time had with his mother talking about painful things that he couldn’t fix. 

“Come and sit with me,” she pulled him over to the sofa, “We have so much to catch up with.” 

Mac’s mom curled up again as she settled into the cushions, turning to face Mac who was opposite her. Mac sat so that his hands were resting in his lap, just out of reach of his mother’s, with one of his legs stretched out to brush against hers, unwilling to break their contact. 

“So, Angus,” his mother said, wriggling into a more comfortable position in her seat, “tell me about your life, are you happy?” 

“I suppose I’m…” Mac stumbled into silence with no idea how to continue. “How do you tell? I’m not _not_ happy.” 

“That’s a double negative sweetheart. And as for being able to tell if you’re happy,” his mom paused, pushing her tongue into her cheek as she thought, “Are there people who care about you, friends, good people, in your life?” 

“Yes, some of the people in my life are not so good but the important one are. They’re crazy and inappropriate and unpredictable but they're all amazing.” 

“Do you take care of each other, make each other laugh, drive each other crazy? Are you a family?” 

“Yes.” Mac smiled, thinking of evenings around the fire pit, effortless banter and knowing that someone always had his back even when he didn’t want them to. 

“You’re lucky to have them.” 

“I know.” 

“That sounds like something to be happy about, don’t you think?” She winked at him. “That’s all I really ever wanted for you. I just wanted my boy to be happy.” 

“That’s what Jack said you’d want.” Mac rolled his eyes fondly at the thought of how delighted Jack would be at being proven right. 

“Jack sounds like a wise man.” 

“He is in an uncanny, illogical, Bruce Willis obsessed way.” 

“Well, he sounds like fun.” His mom grinned and quirked her eyebrows, “I can see why you like him. Tell me more about yourself. How do you spend your time, what do you do?” 

“A little of this and a little of that.” Mac shrugged noncommittally, not knowing how to begin to explain his job to his mother. 

“Ahh,” she nodded, “it’s something clandestine then.” 

“No. Yes. Kind of.” 

“It sounds like what you do is a real secret, you don’t even know what it is.” She gave him a teasing smile. 

Mac huffed a laugh, “It’s hard to explain, it’s complicated.” 

“Honey,” Mac’s mom fixed him with an uncompromising look, “I know how these things work. I was married to your father. But you help people? You protect them?” 

“I try. I do what I can.” 

“What you can?” She cocked her head at him. “You say that like what you do isn’t important. You help the innocent, don’t you? Defend people when they can’t defend themselves? There are few things nobler than that.”

“I guess.” Mac ducked his head down, feeling self-conscious, “it doesn’t always feel that way.” 

“It is that way and I couldn’t be prouder.” She squeezed his arm. “And those things that you do to, those plans that you think up, they keep getting bigger and bolder don’t they?” 

“I don’t pick the missions, I just go where I’m told and react to what’s happening in front of me.” 

“You chose your job. You chose to face nuclear weapons, natural disasters and international terrorist groups. Those aren’t things that most people come across in their normal working day. You chose to be faced with extreme circumstances.” 

“I just want to keep people safe.” 

“And you do. By doing things that are cleverer and crazier and more challenging than anything everyone else before you has done. But Angus, defusing a bomb under sniper fire, hanging from a speeding train and saving the world with seconds to spare,” she reached over and rested her hand on his, her voice changed, dropping to a tone that was troubled and sad, “when do you think it will be enough?” 

Mac looked down at where their fingers were resting together. Her hand was smaller and paler than his and she wearing her wedding and engagement rings. He didn’t know what had happened to her rings after she passed away and when he was younger he had wondered where they had gone, if they’d been buried with her or if his dad had kept them as a keepsake, he had never worked up the courage to ask. Mac knew that the rings his father had given his mother would be a subject that was firmly off limits with his dad, like so many things had become in the years after they lost her. In the months before his father left it had been so difficult to navigate through the minefield of topics he would either not discuss or grow angry about if they were mentioned that it felt like they barely spoke to one and other. Mac had felt so lonely in his own home. Isolated and unheard. 

Mac spoke down to where his and his mother’s hands were joined. “It’s like, if I keep doing things that are big enough, things that are brilliant and ridiculous and reckless enough, I can somehow make everything different. If I run fast enough and push hard enough I can change things. I can make it so that you aren’t gone anymore.” Mac’s vision blurred as tears filled his eyes. The honesty hurt, it was something he had never considered admitting to himself but he felt safe giving that truth to his mother. Since he was a boy climbing into a tree house with Bozer an aching need inside Mac had driven him to strive and push and challenge with the burning, irrational hope that somehow one day it would be enough for him to have his mom back. “As long as I can remember I’ve wanted to make it so that you aren’t gone anymore.” 

“Oh, Angus,” his mother pulled him forwards and held him to her, tucking her cheek against his hair. “You know that my mother died before you were born?” Mac nodded, his grandmother’s pictures were in Harry’s photo album. “She was hit by a car when I was about four months pregnant with you. When I first found out that I was going to have a baby we talked about names and she said that she liked Angus, it was what her grandfather had been called and she told me that she liked the idea of a new generation having an old family name. When you were born I called you Angus because I felt like even though you would never know your grandmother, having the name she chose meant that she was with you. The things we do for the people we miss rarely makes logical sense, they’re driven by love and loss and hope.” 

Mac closed his eye and pressed his cheek against his mom's neck, his tears rolling onto her shoulder. He was an adult, bigger and taller than his mom, but she held him like he was child, her touch maternal and tender. The love contained in the embrace was simple and beautiful and Mac clung to his mother, trying to imprint the feel of it into his heart. “I never knew that’s where my name came from.” 

“Well now you do.” She stretched up and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “But, sweetheart, you can’t risk yourself. You are too precious to be lost doing something dangerous trying to change what can’t be altered. Those people you love, they love you too don’t they?” 

“Yes,” It felt strange to say it, whenever Mac thought about his friends he thought about how he felt about them, how important they were to him, not what he meant to them, “I guess they do.” 

“Then be careful with yourself. Don’t make them lose you.” 

“I never intend to -”

“Don’t do that to them.” She sat up and gripped both of his hands in hers, bringing them up to her lips. “Please.” 

Mac squeezed her fingers where they were laced together with his and rested his forehead against their joined hands. “Okay.” He promised. 

“Angus,” Mac’s mother lowered their hands and rubbed her thumb over his fingers. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin, looking serious and full of a resolve that pained her, “why are you here?” 

“I don’t know. I was with Riley on a mission, I can’t remember, there was an explosion, and then everything was twisting.” He remembered the chaos and pain he’d felt. He’d been frightened and trapped then he’d heard Riley calling to him. Then Jack. They were calling him but he couldn’t reach them. 

“Your friends are scared for you. They want you back.” 

“But I’ve only just got here.” To a house that from a childhood that he couldn’t remember. He felt like he understood where he was but he didn’t know how or why. Harry, his mom, they couldn’t be real but he’d held them and knew that he was with them. 

“You have, but do you think this is where you are meant to be right now?” 

“It could be.” He didn’t care that he sounded sullen. Mac could feel the edge of panic and loss brush against him. 

“No it couldn’t.” His mom met his gaze, her eyes honest and sad. “You have things to do, things that you haven’t finished yet.” 

“So did you.” His voice sunk into bitterness. 

“I did.” A tear fell over his mother’s lashes. “It wasn’t fair. You were so young and I wanted to stay with you so much but that’s not what happened. It doesn’t have to be like that for you.” 

“But I don’t want to leave you.” Mac’s grip tightened on his mother’s hand. 

“I know, we haven’t had enough time together but that’s just how it is. I wish it could be different but it can’t.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” Mac looked around for inspiration but saw nothing that could help him. He didn’t have his Swiss Army knife with him, his hand were empty. Harry’s words came back to him at that thought, _“You have you and that’s enough. You’ll see”_

“I think you do, baby.” She pulled Mac close and he leaned hard into her, holding her to him in a crushing embrace that was too tight to be comfortable. “I want you to go and live your life. Laugh and learn and love, be with your friends, make memories, be the amazing person that you are and eventually, when I see you again, I want you to tell me all about it, every moment. Live every moment for me. Please.” 

Mac didn’t want to leave his mother behind, there was so much more they had to say to each other, but he did need to see his friends. That was where he was supposed to be, who his life was supposed to be spent with. “I will, I promise.” 

“I love you, Angus.” His mom whispered 

“I love you too, mom.” Mac told her. And he let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was writing this chapter I had You Tube on in the background playing one of those “My Mix” playlists of the videos it remembers that you’ve watched in the past, when I got to the scene between Mac and his mom For Good started playing and it really suited what I was writing so I played it several times to help me get into the right mood.  
> I was really struggling to think of a title for this story, I had scribbled possible titles all over a piece of paper in a failing brainstorming attempt to come up with one, and when I finished the chapter I went back to the lyrics of For Good to see if there was a title there. Which is where I found Because I Knew You. Good old Wicked, I’m going to see it in September and I’m really looking forward to it. I have a feeling I’m going to cry the whole way through. xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of shows have used the ‘Character A has a near death experience and sees people they have lost/visions of what could be’ trope and I am an absolute sucker for it whenever it happens. 
> 
> An absolute sucker. 
> 
> So I thought I thought I’d have a go at doing my own. Maybe if I’m a very good girl and wish really hard MacGyver will do one in the next season *fingers crossed* :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos on this story, I really, truly appreciate it xxx

“You’re doing it in with a pen? You never do crosswords in with a pen! Everyone knows that, it’s just asking for trouble” 

“I couldn’t find a pencil. It’s not a dire situation, I think we’ll manage with the ballpoint pen.” Mac knew exactly what Riley’s expression and flippant gesture would look like. 

A snort. “Well when you get a question wrong and the little boxes are all full of blue inky scribble so you can’t tell what the letters are anymore don’t come crying to me cause I’m just going to say ‘I told you so’.” 

“If and when that moment comes I’ll find a way to cope on my own, Jack. I’m willing to take that risk.” 

“On your head be it. What’s the next clue?” 

“Four down,” Riley said, “abstract or metaphysical. Thirteen letters with an N in the middle.” 

_Transcendental_ , Mac thought. And opened his eyes. 

He could see a white celling of polystyrene tiles, he could hear the soft whir of monitors behind Jack and Riley’s conversation and the brisk movement of people outside the room under that. He was in a hospital then. That explained the thick feeling of drugs laying heavily over him. 

He lay still and breathed. Just breathed. His awareness drifted through his body informing him of the ache in his head, the sore press of each inhale and the weakness in his muscles. He was bone weary, and Mac felt like that was literally true, that he was exhausted down to his marrow. As tired as he was he didn’t want to go back to sleep, not yet. He sifted his weight, shuffling up the bed minutely to be higher up on his pillows. 

“Mac?” Jack asked. 

Mac turned towards his voice and saw Jack leaning towards him. His eyes were roaming over Mac’s face, his expression wavering between apprehension and delight. 

“Mac, can you hear me, brother? You’ve opened your eyes a couple of times but you were never really with us.” 

“Transcendental.” Mac’s throat felt sore around the shape of the word, his voice rough and halting. 

“What?” 

“The answer. Four down. It’s transcendental.” 

“Mac!” Jack surged to his feet and towards Mac with his arms ready to gather him into an embrace but pulled back abruptly, suddenly aware of the discomfort his enthusiastic hug could inflict on Mac’s healing body. “No, bad idea, hugs later when you’re stronger.” He patted Mac’s shoulder squeezing then rubbing at Mac’s collarbone with his thumb, unable to resist physical contact of some sort. His elated expression folded into ire and he prodded Mac’s arm with an insistent hand. “You scared me! For a genius you are a full on moron. Crashing your car? Really? Did it not occur to you to avoid taking out your own vehicle when you rigged that explosion? Or, I don’t know, maybe you should have driven away from the big bang a little bit faster! Accelerated before the boom happened! You remember the accelerator don’t you? It’s that little peddle that you find under your right foot." Jack stomped his leg up and down, mimimg slamming his foot on the gas to make his imaginary car speed away." You clearly can’t be trusted to drive anymore, you're not to so much as look at a car without me in the future do you understand me, Crash Test Dumbass?” 

“Ignore him, he hasn’t watched a Bruce Willis movie in a few days and he’s having withdrawal symptoms.” Riley came round to Jack’s side of the bed, sitting down on the covers and taking Mac’s hand. She squeezed his fingers with her own, tucking their joint hands under her chin. “He’s right though. Wrecking your car? Who does that?” She rolled her eyes at him with an affectionate shake of her head. “You are a dumbass.” 

“I wrecked a car?” Mac frowned as he searched through his recent memories. He remembered being chased and needing to stop the bad guys quickly. “Oh, yeah, that.” 

“Yes, that. If by ‘that’ you mean a huge explosion that totalled truck that was following you and the car you were driving and nearly turned you into barbeque.” Jack looked marginally less angry. “At least we know you don’t have amnesia.” 

“How much do you remember?” Riley asked. She was still holding his hand and the pressure on his fingers was a comforting contrast to the other sensations he was aware of in his body. He could tell that drugs were masking the lion's share of pain he ought to be feeling but they were leaving him feeling sluggish and dull. His mouth was dry and sour and he licked his lips to try to moisten them. 

“Here,” Jack poured a cup of water and held it near his lips. Mac drank several mouthfuls through a straw and felt the room temperature liquid refreshing him. 

“Thanks. I remember smugglers, a car, the world spinning and then leaning on someone and walking.” Mac looked up at Riley, “that was you. Are you okay?” Her face, like Jack's, was lined and tinged grey with fatigue. Mac couldn't see any cuts or bruises on her skin and she hadn't moved as if she carried any pain. "Were you hurt?" 

“I’m fine. You’re heavier than you look though so we made an agreement: next time you pull me out of the burning car.” 

“That sounds fair. Anytime. So that’s another Wookie Life Debt then? ” Mac didn’t remember getting out of the car but he had blurred, pain filled memories of someone supporting him and encouraging him to keep moving, then a hand in his own gently urging him to hold on. 

“You would have done the same for me. But if you want to thank me by, say, doing what you do with and a frying pan and a curtain track and getting me free cable, I wouldn’t mind.” She gave him a playful grin. “I need to go and call Bozer, I promised I’d let him know as soon as you woke up. You” she laid Mac’s hand back on the bed and pointed at him, “no more near death experiences while I’m gone.” 

“I’ll do my best. Riley, thank you for…” Mac didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Thank you for saving my life, for running to help me even though you must have been terrified, thanks for staying with me and holding my hand, thank you for being my friend? 

“You’re welcome, Dumbass.” She stood, smiling at him and Jack fondly then and left the room, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she went. 

When the door shut behind her Mac turned back to Jack, who pulled the railing around the bed up, rested his arms on the metal and propped his chin up on his hand, looking at Mac expectantly. 

“You scared me, you know.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I’m mad at you.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Saying goodbye to me before they loaded you into the helicopter, what was that?” 

“I don’t really remember,” Mac looked away from Jack’s perceptive gaze, “it felt like I was dying, I must have wanted to make things right before I did.” 

“You said thank you. That’s not making thing right. There’s nothing right about that at all." Jack looked up, tensing his jaw and swallowing to fight the tears Mac could see gathering in his eyes. "You go kaboom, I go kaboom remember?" Jack cleared his throat against the rough burr catching in his voice." You don’t get to check out early.” 

Mac couldn’t apologise for what he’d said to Jack, if anything, he was pleased that he’d had to chance to say it. Mac was heartened to think that if he hadn’t made it the last thing he said to Jack was something honest and real. Something he truly meant. 

“Jack, I...” 

Jack interrupted with a deep sigh. “But you had just been in a car wreck. I suppose, just this once, because you were bleeding internally, I can let it go. But I won’t again, Mac. Don’t do that to me again.” 

“Okay.” 

They were both silent for a long moment. The machines monitoring Mac filled the hushed room with soft whirrs. 

“So,” Jack started. 

Paused. 

Looked intently at Mac’s face as if he was searching for an answer in his face. 

“You weren’t here. When they brought you out of surgery your body was in this room but it was like the rest of you was, I don’t know, somewhere else. And then when you coded…I’ve been wondering, where did you go, do you know?” 

“Did I see bright lights and a tunnel?” 

“No. Well, yes. Yes. Did you see something,” Jack cocked his head and looked at Mac with his eyes bright and knowing. “I think you saw something.” 

Mac looked down at his hands and began tracing over the pattern in the blanket with his fingers. “There’s no scientific evidence to support ‘near death experiences’. It’s possible that the things people report seeing are a result of chemicals being released in the brain at the point of cardiac arrest.” 

“It’s possible that Elvis is alive and is running a hot dog stand near the Santa Monica pier but that doesn’t mean it’s happening.” Jack countered, wearing his ‘I don’t care about science, I know that I see’ expression. 

Mac concentrated hard on tracing the over and over design underneath his fingers. What he had seen made no logical sense, his body had suffered a trauma and was filled with chemicals from its own biological responses and medical intervention. He believed in the theory of multiple dimensions at a subatomic level but wasn’t sure if he could accept the idea of a soul moving on, but… 

But. 

Harry and his mom had felt so real. Holding them, talking to them, had all felt so real. To lie about or dismiss what he’d experienced felt ungrateful and disrespectful. 

“I saw my mom and Harry. I know that I couldn’t have but I did.” It didn’t hurt to say even though Mac had half expected to feel shame at admitting it. “In my old house in Mission City. We talked.” 

Jack hummed in response, smiling gently at Mac. “They told you that they loved you are were proud of you, didn’t they?” 

Mac raised his eyes to meet Jack’s, “How did you know that?” 

“What else would they have said?” Jack looked bewildered at Mac’s apparent lack of insight. “Of course that’s how they feel.” 

“I told them that I’d missed them and they said they missed me too. Maybe it only happened in my head but it was comforting.” Mac felt soothed, reassured by the knowledge that the people he had lost still existed somewhere, even if it was just in inside him. 

“Just because it maybe only happened in your head doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real, dude.” 

“Doesn’t Dumbledore say something like that in one of the Harry Potter movies ?” 

“He could have,” Jack nodded, “he was a wise old wizard, he knew a thing or two.” 

“My mom said that about you,” Mac remembered, seeing her wry grin, “that you were wise.” 

Jack’s face was split with a huge, joyful grin. “Your mom sounds like a smart lady.” 

“She said that I was lucky to have you too. All of you.” 

“Definitely a very smart lady, I can see where you got your brains from. I think me and her would get on just fine.” He sobered, his grin softening into a sad, pensive smile. “Mac, do you think,” Jack shifted in his seat and fussed with Mac's sheets, straightening them unnecessarily, looking wistful and uncertain in a way that Jack rarely did, and only ever about things that really mattered to him, “do you think your mom and granddaddy are in the same place as my dad?” 

“I do.” Mac said simply, certain of the answer. “Wherever they are it has to be the same place your father has gone to.” 

Jack nodded, his eyes full, his expression one of affection and grief. “Do you think your mom and my dad hang out together?” 

Mac felt a wide, delighted grin grow at the idea. “I’d like to think so.” 

“I can just see them sitting on a porch swing, sipping iced tea, passing the time of day and telling stories about the crazy things their sons get up to, can’t you?” Jack’s cheeks were wet but his eyes were smiling. 

A picture of his mom and Jack’s dad formed in Mac’s mind’s eye, his mom curled up like a contented cat at one end of the porch swing of his childhood home with Jack’s dad lounging comfortably at the other, laughing as the late afternoon sun cast golden light and long shadows around them. “Oh yeah, I think they’d have some stories of their own to share too. I think they’ll get on really well.” 

“Me too.” 

The monitors beside Mac’s bed continued beating steadily, marking each breath and beat of his heart, a soft reminder that he was there, alive and engaged with the world. He felt himself sink into the pillows beneath him, fatigued by the conversation with his friends as much as it had sustained him. 

Jack leaned back in his chair, assessing Mac critically. “You look beat, bud, you should get some sleep. The eight hours a night, dreaming kind of sleep, not the unconscious in a coma type of snoozing you’ve been indulging in until very recently. The doctors said that you’d need a lot of rest so you should probably get on with that. Don’t worry, we’ll be here when you wake up.” 

  
  


Riley strode though glass doors to a patch of ground outside the hospital that had been made into a garden with seats and tables for people searching for a quiet, calming space. 

She took a deep breath, the first she felt she’d was capable of for days, and the air felt cool and fresh in her lungs. Red and golden leaves crunched and danced around her boots as she walked to an empty bench under a tree. Dialling Bozer’s number as she sat, thrilled to be able to give him the good news he’d been hoping for, Riley felt tears poised expectantly in her eyes at the thought of how relieved she was going to make him. 

“Boze? It’s Riley. Mac’s awake.” 


End file.
